If* 


JOSEPH  HODGES   CHOATE 


JOSEPH    HODGES  CHOATE 


fjfcemotrtal 


DELIVERED  BEFORE 

THE  CENTURY  ASSOCIATION 

JANUARY  19,  1918 


ADOPTED  MAY  16,  1917 


NEW  YORK 

PRINTED  FOR  THE  CENTURY  ASSOCIATION 
1918 


JOSEPH    HODGES    CHOATE 
BORN  JANUARY  24,  1832  DIED  MAY  14,  1917 

.Elected  a  Member  of 

THE  CENTURY  ASSOCIATION 
1858 

President 
I9II-I9I7 


2021116 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

RESOLUTIONS 9 

ADDRESS 

ELIHU  ROOT 10 

LETTER 

THE  RT.  HON.  VISCOUNT  BRYCE   .        .       17 

LETTER 

CHARLES  W.  ELIOT        ....      19 

CABLE  MESSAGE 
THE  RT.  HON.  ARTHUR  JAMES  BALFOUR      25 

ADDRESS 

V/ THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  .        .        .        .27 

ADDRESS 

FRANCIS  LYNDE  STETSON  35 


RESOLUTIONS 

ADOPTED  BY 

THE    BOARD    OF    MANAGEMENT 

At  a  special  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Man- 
agement on  January  i6th,  1917,  to  take  action 
on  the  death  of  the  President  of  the  Century 
Association,  the  Honorable  Joseph  H.  Choate, 
the  following  resolutions  were  adopted : 

RESOLVED:  That  the  Board  of  Management, 
expressing  the  deep  personal  sorrow  felt  by  every 
member  of  the  Century  Association,  desires  to 
record  the  peculiar  honor  and  affection  in  which 
Mr.  Choate  has  been  held  as  President  of  the 
Club.  The  sense  of  his  intimate  and  friendly 
interest  in  the  Association,  transcending  any 
purely  official  relation,  has  made  us  all  richer  in  his 
animating  presence.  His  memory,  and  our  pride 
in  his  career,  will  be  among  our  most  treasured 
traditions. 

RESOLVED:  That  the  sympathy  of  the  Associa- 
tion be  expressed  to  the  family  of  Mr.  Choate  by 
the  sending  of  a  copy  of  these  Resolutions  through 
the  Secretary. 

HARRY  OSBORN  TAYLOR, 

Secretary. 


ADDRESS  OF 
ELIHU  ROOT 

PRESIDENT  OF  THE  CENTURY  ASSOCIATION 

GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  CENTURY: — It  is  peculiarly 
grateful  to  me  that  the  first  occasion  of  per- 
forming the  duties  to  which  your  too  partial 
judgment  has  called  me  should  be  in  memory 
of  the  noble  and  dear  friend  who  has  been  our 
President  during  these  past  years.  Many  or- 
ganizations and  institutions  have  done  honor  to 
his  memory.  He  was  a  lawyer  whose  excep- 
tional talent  in  some  directions  rose  almost,  if  not 
quite,  to  genius,  and  the  lawyers  have  with  one 
acclaim  paid  honor  to  his  memory.  He  was  a 
diplomatist  of  the  highest  quality,  and  the  public 
men  of  this  country  and  of  Europe  have  testified 
to  their  high  appreciation  of  his  work  and  his 
achievements.  He  was  a  great  citizen,  imbued 
with  a  sense  of  duty  to  his  country,  to  the  com- 
munity in  which  he  lived,  to  his  fellowmen, — dur- 
ing all  his  long  life  laboring  without  ceasing 
ungrudgingly  for  their  benefit. 

He  was  a  patron  of  the  arts,  for  more  than  forty 
years  devoting  his  time  first  in  the  organization, 
then  in  guiding  the  feeble  steps  of  the  Metropoli- 

10 


of  JElibu  "Root  n 

tan  Museum  of  Art,  and  to  the  last  devoting  his 
time  to  its  service, — as  a  member  of  its  Board  of 
Trust,  a  member  of  its  Executive  Committee, 
Chairman  of  its  Law  Committee,  Vice-President, 
— never  for  a  moment*  feeling  that  the  time  ex- 
pended for  the  education  of  the  people  of  his  own 
city,  his  own  country,  to  higher  standards  of  art, 
education  in  the  love  of  all  that  is  beautiful,  was 
time  wasted. 

He  was  full  of  human  charity.  He  worked  for 
the  poor  with  deep  comprehension  of  all  their 
troubles,  their  sufferings,  their  sorrows.  As  Presi- 
dent of  the  State  Charities  Aid  Association,  as 
Governor  of  the  New  York  Hospital,  as  President 
of  the  Society  for  the  Blind, — in  all  his  busy  life 
always  ready  to  give  his  time  and  his  effort  in  that 
cause. 

And  from  all  these  associations  of  his  long  life 
have  come  expressions  of  sorrow  over  his  loss,  of 
admiration  for  his  career,  and  of  gratitude  for  the 
things  that  he  accomplished.  We  meet,  we,  his 
old  friends  in  The  Century,  meet  for  something 
far  different.  We  meet  to  celebrate  the  man 
as  we  knew  him,  his  personality.  As  I  look  back 
over  his  life,  with  more  than  forty  years  of  which 
I  was  very  familiar,  it  seems  to  me  that,  as  I  sum 
up  what  he  did  in  all  the  directions  to  which  he 
turned  his  high  abilities,  as  I  sum  them  all  up,  the 
man  was  greater  than  they,  the  man  was  greater 
than  what  he  did. 

But  there  is  little  that  we  can  say  or  do  to  per- 
petuate the  memory  of  that  fine  and  gracious  per- 
sonality. Words  may  awaken  the  memories  of 
those  who  knew  him;  words  may  call  up  from  the 


12.  a&fcreee  of 

hidden  layers  of  consciousness  recollections  of  this 
incident  and  that,  of  this  act  and  that,  of  the 
influence  of  his  presence,  of  the  unexpressed  and 
undefined  impression  which  we  received;  but  words 
can  do  little  or  nothing  to  carry  to  the  minds  of 
those  who  did  not  know  him  or  to  perpetuate 
in  future  generations  any  conception  of  what  the 
man  was.  Garrick  said,  you  will  remember:  "One 
common  grave  covers  the  actor  and  his  art." 
That  is  the  universal  truth:  one  common  grave 
covers  the  person  and  his  personality.  All  the 
exquisite,  the  subtle,  the  delicate,  the  lambent, 
the  bright,  the  shining  light  of  his  life  must  die 
with  us,  and  lives  now  only  with  our  memories, 
and  with  our  memories  it  must  cease  to  be. 

Yet,  this  is  the  truest  memorial,  this  memorial 
of  the  Choate  we  knew;  and  all  that  the  lawyers 
and  the  diplomatists  and  the  citizens  can  say  and 
record  and  perpetuate  in  print  is  but  the  outside, 
the  shadow  of  the  man  we  knew.  We  can  say 
that  he  had  high  courage,  clear,  lofty  courage;  he 
feared  the  face  of  no  man;  no  power,  no  dignity 
abashed  him  or  caused  the  slightest  tremor  in  that 
clear  and  instant  courage.  We  remember  the 
uniform,  the  constant,  bright,  and  genial  cheerful- 
ness under  all  circumstances,  dominant  and 
diffusing  itself  among  all  the  surroundings. 

Grief  was  not  unknown  to  him;  bitter  sorrows 
came  into  his  life,  but  that  beautiful  and  bright, 
cheerful  courage  rose  above  them  all  and  presented 
always  to  the  world  the  same  steady  and  beaming 
countenance.  Serene  and  imperturbable  temper 
went  with  him  everywhere,  under  all  circum- 
stances. He  was  never  sour,  or  bitter,  or  fretful, 


IRoot  13 

or  cross ;  never  gave  way  to  passion ;  never  allowed 
himself  to  be  swayed  by  personal  animosity;  of 
kindly  judgment,  but  not  mushy,  not  a  negation  of 
spirit,  the  kindly  judgment  that  comes  from  a 
knowledge  of  man's  infirmities  and  an  even  balance 
of  the  temptations  and  the  obstacles  to  right 
conduct. 

I  don't  know  any  man  with  a  more  genuine 
interest  in  human  life  than  he  had.  The  secret  of 
the  interest  that  others  found  in  him,  the  reason 
why  for  so  many  years  in  countless  banquets  and 
meetings  of  all  kinds  he  always  found  something 
that  was  interesting  and  inspiring  for  his  audience, 
lay  in  the  fact  that  he  was  genuinely  interested  in 
his  audience,  interested  in  everything  in  life  about 
him,  interested  in  everything  that  went  on  in  the 
world. 

All  those  things  we  remember,  and  when  we 
put  them  all  together  we  make  some  little  approach 
to  the  reasons  why  we  think  of  him  and  feel  of  him 
as  we  do.  And  there  is  the  reason  for  his  humor : 
his  humor  was  the  reaction  of  the  people  and  the 
events  about  him,  his  individual  reaction;  it  was 
not  borrowed.  He  was  always  interesting  because 
what  he  gave  to  his  audiences  was  his  own  fresh 
and  original  way  of  looking  at  the  events  of  the 
times  and  of  studying  the  characters  of  the  people 
about  him.  Every  speech  that  he  made  was  his  own 
contribution  to  a  study  of  life.  He  had,  I  think, 
in  the  highest  degree  what  we  have  no  word  in  our 
language  for  and  what  the  French  call  esprit.  He 
of  all  the  men  we  know  embodied  to  our  under- 
standing what  they  mean  by  esprit.  He  had  what 
is  so  rare  and  what  the  highest  ability  and  the 


14  Hfcfcresa  of 

longest  experience  and  the  greatest  achievement 
do  not  give:  he  had  distinction;  his  personality 
stands  up  among  all  those  of  this  great  city,  of 
this  great  country  as  having  distinction; — and  he 
had  charm.  I  cannot  define  it;  we  do  not  know 
whence  it  comes;  we  don't  know  what  it  is;  we 
don't  know  why  it  is,  but  he  had  it;  and  we  can't 
communicate  to  anyone  else  in  the  world  the 
impression  which  comes  from  charm,  the  charm 
that  he  had.  He  was  beyond  imitation;  he  was 
himself,  and  there  never  will  be  another. 

There  was  a  little  book — many  of  you  have  seen 
it — privately  printed  the  other  day  by  his  family, 
a  few  copies  printed  but  not  published.  Two  or 
three  years  ago  when  he  was  quite  ill  and  was  kept 
in  bed  by  his  physicians  for  wearisome  weeks,  he 
yielded  to  the  urgent  requests  that  his  family  had 
been  making  for  a  long  time  to  leave  some  account 
of  his  early  years.  Influenced,  I  think,  to  some 
degree  by  the  fact  that  in  undertaking  to  write  a 
memorial  upon  an  old  friend  for  the  Bar  Associa- 
tion he  had  found  it  so  difficult  to  learn  anything 
about  his  friend's  early  life, — lying  in  his  bed  he 
had  his  secretary  come  and  day  by  day  he  dictated 
some  of  his  early  recollections.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  delightful  and  charming  pieces  of  literary 
work  that  I  have  ever  seen.  It  is  the  man  himself. 
And  I  think  that  there  you  find  the  key  to  a  great 
deal  of  his  character,  and  the  reason  why  with  all 
his  intellectual  force  and  power,  with  all  the  habits 
of  a  lawyer,  with  all  the  skill  with  which  he  used 
the  weapons  of  sarcasm  and  of  ridicule,  nevertheless 
all  who  knew  him  loved  him.  For  there  you  find 
that  through  all  his  long  life  he  had  treasured  in 


IRoot  15 

his  heart  the  memories  of  his  early  youth  in  the 
simple  surroundings  of  his  home;  they  never  lapsed 
back  into  the  past  with  him ;  they  continued  witfc 
him  always. 

He  says,  "In  my  bedroom  there  are  the  photo- 
graphs of  eighty-five  of  the  members  of  my  college 
class," — all  but  three  of  that  college  class  from 
which  he  separated  in  1852;  and  he  says,  "I  fre- 
quently put  myself  to  sleep  in  calling  the  roll  of 
the  class,  which  is  as  familiar  to  me  now  as  it 
was  when  I  graduated."  He  tells  how  William, 
his  brother,  whom  we  know,  led  him  by  the  hand 
when  first  he  was  taken,  two  and  one-half  years  of 
age,  to  the  Dames'  School.  He  tells  about  the 
school  and  its  little  incidents.  He  dwells  with 
peculiar  interest  and  humor  upon  the  records 
in  the  family  Bible;  how  the  Choates — old  sea- 
faring family,  born  and  bred  upon  the  borders  of 
Salem  Harbor — recorded  the  births  not  only  by 
date  and  hour  but  by  the  state  of  the  tide.  ' '  George, 
born  about  nine  in  the  morning,  just  at  high  tide;" 
"William,  born  three  in  the  afternoon,  four  hours 
of  ebb  tide;"  and  so  through  the  long  list.  There 
is  something  about  it  evidently  that  carries  him 
back  to  old  Salem.  He  dwells  with  most  charm- 
ing and  pathetic  love  upon  the  sacrifices  that 
his  parents  made  to  send  him  and  his  brothers 
to  college.  His  father, — he  says  he  had  known 
him  to  pay  out  what  must  have  been  nearly  the 
last  dollar  in  his  pocket  towards  their  education ; — 
four  brothers  in  the  Harvard  Catalogue  of  1848-49 
at  one  time;  and  he  says:  "This  done  when  the 
ordinary  fees  of  the  hard-working  country  physi- 
cian were  seventy -five  cents  for  a  visit  and  $7.50 


16          Bfcfcress  of  EHbu  IRoot 

for  bringing  a  new  child  into  the  world."  And 
with  manifest  joy  he  recounts  the  pleasure  that 
must  have  been  his  parents'  when  he  and  his 
brother  sandwiched  the  college  class  between  them, 
William,  who  he  says  was  superior  to  all  other 
students,  having  no  second,  being  the  valedicto- 
rian and  he,  Joseph — how  it  happened  he  cannot 
tell — made  salutatorian,  so  that  they  appeared 
upon  the  commencement  stage  at  either  end  of 
the  class. 

Those  reminiscences  carry  the  very  breath  of 
Salem,  of  old  Salem,  and  when  I  had  read  them 
I  took  down  some  volumes  of  Hawthorne  and 
turned  them  over;  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  was 
going  to  a  next  friend  when  I  did  that,  and  that 
I  found  the  same  charming  spirit  there.  It  was 
that  side  of  his  nature,  living  always,  under  the 
brilliant  career,  under  the  high  endeavor,  under 
the  great  achievements,  that  kept  him  the  dear 
delightful  youth  that  he  was,  with  his  blithe 
spirit  and  his  tender  sympathy  and  his  loyalty  to 
friends;  it  was  this  that  made  us  love  him,  and 
it  will  keep  his  memory  green  in  our  hearts — the 
memory  of  the  real  man. 

In  all  the  long  career  of  The  Century,  it  has 
never  done  honor  to  anyone  whose  spirit  it  was  more 
honorable  to  honor  than  when  it  made  him  our 
President  and  surrounded  his  old  age  with  the 
glory  of  affection  that  accompanied  him  to  his  end. 


JOSEPH    H.    CHOATE    AT    HIS    GRADUATION    IN    1862,    AETAT   20 


LETTER  FROM 
THE  RT.  HON.  VISCOUNT  BRYCE 

LONDON,  December  lyth,  1917. 


DEAR  MR.  PUTNAM  : 

Since  I  cannot  be  with  you  on  January  I9th,  I 
send  these  few  lines  in  response  to  your  request. 
During  the  last  forty  years,  The  United  States 
has  sent  to  England  a  long  succession  of  dis- 
tinguished men  who  have  worthily  represented 
their  country  here.  When  Mr.  Choate  came,  he 
had  a  high  tradition  to  maintain  and  he  more 
than  maintained  it.  We  knew  his  fame  as  a 
great  advocate  and  a  great  American  citizen, 
high-minded  and  public-spirited.  We  soon  found 
that  he  was  also  a  great  citizen  of  the  world, 
understanding  Europe,  and  in  particular  under- 
standing and  appreciating  all  that  was  best  in 
England.  Himself  a  characteristic  product  of 
New  England,  he  was  at  home  in  Old  England,  and 
we  saw  in  him  how  the  ancient  stock  had  grown 
and  flourished  and  what  fruit  it  was  bearing  in  the 
new  Western  soil.  His  ready  tact,  his  spontaneous 
geniality,  his  inexhaustible  humour,  made  him 
the  delight  of  every  company  he  entered.  He  did 

17 


is  letter  from  Ht  t>on.  Discount  :Bn?ce 

not  confine  himself  to  the  diplomatic  duties  he 
discharged  so  skilfully,  nor  to  the  legal  gatherings 
where  our  Bench  and  Bar  so  often  welcomed  him; 
but  went  hither  and  thither  through  the  country, 
delivering  addresses  that  were  always  full  of  ripe 
thought  and  literary  grace.  No  American  ever 
did  more  to  make  more  close  and  more  tender 
the  ties  of  affection  that  bind  Britain  and  America 
together.  No  envoy  ever  left  more  friends,  or 
warmer  friends,  behind. 

I  can  never  forget  the  serene  dignity  and  sweet- 
ness of  his  old  age  when  at  Stockbridge,  in  the  calm 
softness  of  an  Indian  summer,  his  friends  gathered 
round  him  and  Mrs.  Choate,  rejoicing  to  pay 
their  homage,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Golden  Wed- 
ding, to  a  life  that  had  rendered  such  noble  service 
to  two  great  countries,  and  beside  the  memory  of 
that  softly  declining  day  I  place  in  thought  the 
sunset  that  came  five  years  later,  when,  after 
welcoming  the  representatives  of  England  and 
France,  he  passed  from  among  us  happy  in  the 
knowledge  that  that  for  which  he  had  so  earnestly 
hoped  and  striven  had  been  achieved,  and  that 
his  country  had  taken  her  stand  as  the  champion 
of  right  and  liberty  in  the  greatest  cause  for  which 
nations  have  ever  fought. 
I  am, 

Very  faithfully  yours, 
(Signed)  JAMES  BRYCE. 


LETTER  FROM 
CHARLES  W.  ELIOT 

Joseph  Hodges  Choate  was  a  genuine  product 
of  democratic  society  at  its  best.  His  life  and 
character  illustrate  the  importance,  in  a  demo- 
cracy, towards  individual  success  and  happiness, 
of  good  inheritances,  both  physical  and  moral, 
sound  education,  the  power  to  work  intensely  and 
with  enjoyment,  diligence  and  thrift,  professional 
ambition  and  faithful  citizenship. 

His  parents  and  grandparents  were  Salem  people 
of  the  best  sort;  and  through  them  Choate  drew 
precious  qualities  from  the  adventurous  sea- 
faring life  of  the  New  England  ports,  and  from  the 
sober,  conscientious,  low-paid  professional  life  and 
simple  domestic  life  of  the  first  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  He  felt  a  strong  interest  in  his 
Salem  ancestors,  and  was  well  content  that  many  of 
them  followed  the  sea.  When  he  was  Ambassador 
to  Great  Britain,  he  took  much  pains  to  look  up 
some  of  his  English  forebears,  and  was  glad  to  find 
that  Choate  was  an  old  name  among  the  better  sort 
of  English  yeomen . 

His  parents  were  keenly  interested  in  the 
education  of  their  six  children,  and  made  many 

19 


20  Xetter  from 

sacrifices  to  procure  for  them  the  best  training 
which  Salem  and  Massachusetts  then  afforded. 
What  Choate  said  of  his  own  father  and  mother 
will  forever  be  true  of  every  worthy  common- 
wealth: "Fathers  and  mothers  such  as  I  have 
described  mine  to  have  been  do  really  constitute 
the  pride  and  glory  of  the  Commonwealth. "  The 
support  given  by  these  parents  to  their  children 
did  not  cease  with  the  completion  of  their  "edu- 
cation" in  the  technical  sense.  When  Choate 
went  to  New  York  in  the  fall  of  1855  to  begin 
his  career  at  the  Bar,  it  was  his  father  who  provided 
the  forty  dollars  a  month  on  which  Choate  thought 
he  could  live,  and  did  live  for  a  time. 

While  in  College  and  the  Law  School,  Choate 
acquired  and  exhibited  a  remarkable  power  of 
mental  application,  and  of  working  at  once  ac- 
curately and  rapidly — the  sufficient  fruit  of  any 
education.  This  power  was  the  great  means  of  his 
success  at  the  Bar  and  in  the  public  service.  He 
could  master  quickly  the  facts  of  a  new  case,  the 
brief  which  another  had  drawn  for  him,  or  the 
underlying  principles  of  a  great  subject  which  he 
had  never  before  studied  much.  In  the  use  of  his 
extraordinary  gifts  and  powers  he  was  very  dili- 
gent, working  long  hours  every  week,  and  allowing 
himself  no  proper  vacations  or  recesses  until  he 
was  an  old  man.  At  last,  he  set  up  an  inviolable 
two  months'  summer  vacation  at  Stockbridge,  but 
on  the  ground  that  at  his  age  he  could  do  more 
for  his  clients  in  ten  months  than  he  could  in  twelve. 
He  himself  believed  that  his  good  bodily  constitu- 
tion carried  him  safely  through  many  years  of 
unreasonably  severe  prof essional  labors;  but  doubt- 


Charles  W.  Eliot  21 

less  plain  living  most  of  the  time,  and  liking  for 
walking  as  an  exercise  contributed  to  the  fortunate 
result.  His  labors  were  lightened  by  a  lively 
sense  of  humor,  a  quick  perception  of  the  amusing 
elements  which  often  enter  into  grave  situations, 
and  a  cheerful  temperament.  In  conversation 
his  wit  sparkled  genially,  and  in  public  speech  it 
was,  as  a  rule,  gay  and  enlivening;  but  sometimes 
in  court  or  on  the  political  platform  it  was  audacious 
and  formidable. 

Thrift  was  one  of  Choate's  characteristics.  As 
soon  as  he  earned  an  income  which  exceeded  his 
moderate  expenses  he  began  to  save  and  ac- 
cumulate. He  and  his  wife  began  their  married 
life  on  a  modest  scale,  which  was  gradually  en- 
larged; but  looking  back  in  his  eighty-third  year 
on  those  early  experiences  Choate  records:  "We 
were  able  by  dint  of  a  reasonable  frugality  to  lay 
aside  from  year  to  year  about  half  our  income." 
The  result  was  as  sure  as  it  was  well  deserved.  In 
the  American  democracy,  with  its  free  education 
and  its  social  fluidity,  the  steadily  thrifty  people, 
who  are  spared  ill-health,  are  quite  sure  to  be 
able  to  transmit  to  their  descendants  education 
and  the  comforts  and  refinements  of  life. 

From  his  youth  up  professional  ambition  was  a 
strong  motive  with  Choate.  While  he  was  study- 
ing law,  he  liked  to  watch  the  leading  lawyers 
of  the  day  at  work  in  the  court-room  before  judge 
or  jury,  and  to  estimate  the  qualities  which  gave 
to  each  his  eminent  success.  It  was  the  advocate 
rather  than  the  judge  that  he  admired  and  emu- 
lated. The  contest  itself  invited  him.  It  was  a 
delight  to  him  to  gain  a  suit,  particularly  if  the  odds 


22  Xetter  from 

were  against  his  client.  In  the  cause  of  a  man  to 
whom  he  thought  a  grave  injustice  had  been  done — 
like  Gen.  Fitzjohn  Porter,  for  example — he  would 
put  forth  all  his  strength,  and  find  a  sufficient  re- 
ward in  the  joy  of  the  encounter,  and  the  righting 
of  his  client.  He  enjoyed  an  arduous  trial  before  a 
jury,  better  than  a  quieter  trial  before  a  judge.  His 
ambition  was  an  honorable  one;  it  was  stimulated 
by  frequent  conflicts  with  able  rivals  at  the  Bar, 
and  it  was  abundantly  gratified. 

In  his  family  life  at  Salem,  and  during  his  stu- 
dent life  at  Harvard  University,  Choate  imbibed 
the  idea  that  every  worthy  citizen  should  win  for 
himself  and  his  family  a  satisfactory  support,  but 
should  also  give  much  time  and  attention  to  public 
service;  and  he  put  this  teaching  into  practice  all 
his  life.  Although  he  was  by  early  association  and 
habit  of  mind  an  intense  New  Englander,  he  had  no 
sooner  established  himself  in  New  York  as  a  rising 
young  lawyer,  than  he  began  to  interest  himself  in 
all  movements  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  great 
city,  and  particularly  to  improve  its  government. 
There  was  no  genuine  reform  movement,  and  no 
sound  charitable  or  social  enterprise,  that  did  not 
look  to  Choate  for  sympathy  and  help,  and  seldom 
in  vain.  He  began  his  long  service  as  a  political 
speaker  in  1856  during  the  Fremont  campaign,  and 
ever  after  gave  time  and  thought  generously  to 
that  sort  of  public  duty;  although,  as  a  rule,  he 
declined  to  be  a  candidate  for  political  office  either 
elective  or  appointive.  He  gave  to  the  New  York 
public  disinterested  service  on  many  boards  of 
trustees  having  charge  of  valuable  institutions. 

When  he  was  sixty-seven  years  old,  and  had 


Cbarles  M.  JBllot  23 

attained    unquestioned    eminence    at    the    Bar, 
Choate  accepted  appointment  as  American  Am- 
bassador to  Great  Britain,   and  served  in  that 
capacity   for   six  years   (1899-1905)    with   great 
acceptance  both  abroad  and  at  home.     He  enjoyed 
the  opportunity  to  compare  the  British  legal  in- 
stitutions and  practices  with  the  American,  and 
to  hold  friendly  intercourse  as  a  peer  with  many 
of  the  leading  men  of  Great  Britain  and  other 
European   countries.     He   moved   with    ease   in 
English  society  as  it  was  before  the  War,  still 
showing  many  traces  of  the  Feudal  System,  and 
illustrated  perfectly  in  his  high  office  the  New 
England  ideas  of  good  birth,  good  family  stock, 
democratic  opportunity  for  capacity  and  char- 
acter, and  the  appropriate  rewards  for  intellectual 
superiority  and  hard  work.     His  service  as  First 
Delegate  from  the  United  States  to  the  Inter- 
national Peace  Conference  at  The  Hague  in  1907 
was    congenial,    professionally    appropriate,    and 
vigorously  performed;  although  his  advocacy  of 
neutral  and  non-combatant  rights  in  wartime,  long 
urged  by  the  United  States,  could  not  prevail 
against  various  European  policies  of  that  day, 
policies  which  the  Great  War  was  soon  to  make 
intelligible  to  everybody. 

When  the  United  States  went  to  war  with 
Germany,  Choate,  who  had  strenuously  opposed 
both  the  first  and  the  second  election  of  Woodrow 
Wilson  to  the  Presidency,  and  had  freely  uttered 
unfavorable  opinions  of  several  members  of  his 
Cabinet,  expressed  generously  his  admiration  for 
recent  addresses  made  by  the  President,  and  for 
the  measures  the  President  was  advocating  before 


24     letter  from  Charles  TK&  Eliot 

Congress  and  the  American  people,  and  thereafter 
supported  every  measure  proceeding  from  Con- 
gress or  the  Administration  which  looked  to  the 
vigorous  prosecution  of  the  War.  In  the  last 
months  of  his  life,  it  was  the  successful  prosecution 
of  the  War  which  occupied  his  thought,  and 
inspired  his  action.  For  him  it  was  a  war  for 
human  liberty  and  a  lasting  peace,  to  be  won  and 
maintained  by  superior  morality  and  superior 
force. 

Altogether,  Joseph  Hodges  Choate  was  a  fine 
type  of  nineteenth-century  American  manhood, 
and  a  shining  example  to  that  of  the  twentieth. 

(Signed)    CHARLES  W.  ELIOT. 

Cambridge,  Mass. 
January  14,  1918. 


CABLE  MESSAGE  FROM 
THE  RT.  HON.  ARTHUR  JAMES  BALFOUR 

DEAR  MR.  PUTNAM  : 

It  is  with  the  greatest  pleasure  that  I  respond  to 
your  invitation  to  send  a  message  to  the  meeting 
summoned  to  honour  the  memory  of  Mr.  Choate. 

I  had  the  pleasure  of  Mr.  Choate' s  friendship 
during  the  whole  period  of  his  Ambassadorship  in 
London,  which  happened  to  fall  within  the  time 
when  I  was  Leader  of  the  House  and  Prime 
Minister,  and  I  was,  therefore,  brought  into  close 
touch  with  him  not  only  in  the  sphere  of  private 
life,  but  in  that  of  great  international  transactions. 

He  was  admirable  both  in  his  warmth  of  heart 
and  his  quickness  of  perception,  and  his  humour 
made  him  a  delightful  companion ;  while  in  public 
affairs,  his  directness,  his  high  sense  of  honour, 
his  power  of  effectively  expounding  his  own  case 
and  of  rapidly  grasping  the  case  of  those  with 
whom  he  was  dealing,  made  him  a  diplomatist  of 
the  first  rank. 

Let  me  add  that,  beneath  all  the  passing  subjects 
of  international  interests,  and  sometimes  of  in- 
ternational difficulty,  which  from  time  to  time 
occupied  the  attention  of  his  Embassy,  he  per- 

25 


fl 
26        Balfour's  Cable 

ceived  with  unerring  clearness  the  fundamental 
unity  of  ideals  and  of  character  which  bind  to- 
gether America  and  Britain. 

Next  to  his  own  country,  I  believe  he  loved  mine, 
and  by  his  personality,  not  less  than  by  his  exer- 
tions, he  earned  the  gratitude  of  the  old  world  as 
well  as  of  the  new. 

He  left  England  in  1905.  I  did  not  see  him 
again  till  May,  1917,  and  then  we  met  for  the  last 
time. 

When  the  British  Mission  visited  New  York,  he 
was  the  first  to  greet  us  when  we  landed  at  the 
Custom  House,  and  his  was  the  last  hand  I  grasped 
before  leaving  the  City. 

During  the  strenuous  and  moving  scenes  which 
filled  the  intervening  hours,  his  eloquence,  his 
vigour,  his  eternal  youth,  were  perpetual  sources 
of  wonder  and  delight. 

He  exulted  in  the  great  part  which  America  was 
destined  to  play  in  the  great  struggle  for  liberty ; 
and  when  on  Sunday  we  parted  at  the  Cathedral 
door,  it  was  in  a  mood  of  high  hope  that  he  said 
to  me,  "We  shall  not  meet  again  till  peace  is 
declared." 

But  the  peace  which  was  to  be  his  (though  we 
could  not  know  this  at  the  moment)  was  serener 
far  than  mortal  statesmanship  can  compass  or 
earth-born  treaties  secure. 

On  the  Monday  night  he  died,  and  as  few  lives 
have  been  fuller   or  more   distinguished   so    no 
death  could  well  be  happier. 
Believe  me 

Yours  very  truly, 

ARTHUR  JAMES  BALFOUR. 


ADDRESS  OF 
THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

MR.  PRESIDENT,  FELLOW-MEMBERS  : — Mr.  Root 

has  set  forth  the  private  side  of  Mr.  Choate's 
life  in  a  way  that  renders  it  almost  impossible  for 
anyone  to  add  much  to  what  he  has  said,  and  Mr. 
Choate  as  a  lawyer  will  be  dealt  with  by  one 
peculiarly  competent  to  deal  with  him.  I  shall 
speak  mainly  of  Mr.  Choate's  public  services. 
Yet  I  want  to  add  just  a  word  or  two  about  Mr. 
Choate  in  his  private  relations. 

I  doubt  if  anyone  could  wish  to  have,  after 
death,  anything  said  of  him  better  than  was  said 
of  Choate  by  Balfour  in  the  letter  to  which  we 
have  just  listened;  for  there  was  a  man  with  the 
indefinable  charm  of  distinction  writing  of  another 
man  who  also  had  the  indefinable  charm  of  distinc- 
tion. One  of  Choate's  great  friends,  a  man  who 
was  his  superior  in  diplomatic  position  at  the  time 
that  Choate  filled  the  great  and  honorable  place  of 
Ambassador  to  Great  Britain,  was  John  Hay ;  and 
Choate  and  Hay  both  rendered  to  American  public 
life  the  service  which  American  public  life  espe- 
cially needs  to  have  rendered  it,  the  service  of  the 
holding  of  high  public  position  by  men  to  whose 

27 


28  a&fcress  of 

native  dignity  of  character  is  added  the  dignity 
that  comes  from  education  and  from  life-long 
association  with  men  of  refinement. 

In  the  highest  and  truest  sense  of  the  word  there 
could  be  no  truer  product  of  a  democracy  than 
Choate  or  than  Hay ;  but  they  had  all  that  dis- 
tinction, all  that  charm,  all  that  quality  of  being 
a  gentleman  which  we  like  to  think  that  there  is 
nothing  in  democracy  that  excludes.  And  it  is  a 
very  real  service  to  this  country  to  have  public 
men  of  the  stamp  of  Choate  and  Hay  in  it.  Aside 
from  the  specific  services  they  rendered  their  mere 
being  in  public  life  was  an  asset  to  the  country. 
I  was  President  during  part  of  the  time  that  John 
Hay  was  Secretary  of  State  and  Choate  Ambassa- 
dor to  Great  Britain,  and  I  was  always  certain  that 
anything  they  did  would  be  marked  by  the  quality 
of  a  high  and  fine  courtesy.  I  could  count  in  their 
case  that  there  would  never  be  any  chance  of  a 
fortiter  in  re  being  marred  by  a  vulgariter  in  modo. 
And  I  think  that  your  distinguished  President, 
who,  for  my  great  good  fortune,  was  afterwards 
associated  with  me  as  Secretary  of  State,  I  think 
that  he  will  agree  with  me  that  now  and  then  those 
in  high  office  in  American  life  wish  that  their 
efficient  champions  had  a  little  better  manners. 
It  is  never  pleasant  to  win  a  diplomatic  victory  and 
then  to  feel  like  apologizing  for  some  of  the  expres- 
sions used  in  winning  it. 

Mr.  Choate  was,  as  Mr.  Root  has  said,  pre- 
eminently the  good  citizen,  pre-eminently  the  man 
of  stainless  integrity,  of  a  high-mindedness  such 
that  everyone  who  was  in  any  shape  or  way 
associated  with  him  took  it  for  granted.  It  was  a 


Gbectoore  IRooeevelt  29 

pleasure  to  be  in  the  room  with  him;  it  was  a 
pleasure  to  be  associated  with  him  in  any  way. 
You  will  notice  that  almost  everyone  who  has 
spoken  or  written  of  him  this  evening  has  al- 
luded to  his  sense  of  humor — even  President 
Eliot. 

Choate,  like  Hay,  was  one  of  those  very,  very 
rare  men  who  actually  say  the  things  that  ordi- 
narily we  only  read  about  in  writings  that  tell  of 
the  sayings  of  the  contemporaries  of  Horace  Wai- 
pole.  Both  Choate  and  Hay  actually  said  the 
things  that  the  rest  of  us  only  think  of  afterwards 
and  then  wish  we  had  said  them  at  the  time. 

I  don't  think  that  there  will  ever  be  a  more 
charming  and  lovable  bit  of  humor,  a  bit  of  humor 
casting  a  more  delightful  light  on  the  character 
of  the  man  and  his  surroundings,  than  Choate' s 
famous  expression  when  asked  what  he  would  most 
like  to  be  if  he  were  not  Mr.  Choate  and  he  said, 
"Why,  Mrs.  Choate's  second  husband." 

Of  course,  as  we  all  know,  his  humor  was  some- 
times more  mordant.  I  shall  never  forget  one 
incident  at  a  reception  at  the  then  Vice-President 
Morton's.  There  was  present  a  thoroughly  nice 
lady — of  possibly  limited  appeal — to  whom  Choate 
spoke;  whereupon,  with  a  face  of  woe,  she  began  to 
relate  how  much  she  had  suffered  since  she  had  last 
seen  him  on  account  of  an  attack  of  appendicitis 
and  of  the  operation  thereby  rendered  necessary. 
After  Choate  had  expressed  his  sympathy  two  or 
three  times  the  lady  said,  "I  didn't  know  whether 
I  had  changed  so  that  you  would  not  recognize 
me."  Mr.  Choate  replied,  "Madame,  I  hardly 
did  recognize  you  without  your  appendix. "  That 


30  Hfcfcrees  of 

I  heard  myself;  and  the  good  lady's  face  looked 
exactly  as  if  a  sponge  had  been  passed  over  it. 

I  think  the  only  time  that  I  personally  ever  saw 
Choate  meet  his  equal  in  any  such  encounter  was 
once  when  Tom  Reed  was  present.  It  was  at  a 
dinner  at  ex-Senator  Wolcott's.  Senator  Wolcott 
— I  am  not  speaking  of  him  ancestrally,  but  in 
his  individual  character — was  not  a  Puritan. 
(I  am  cultivating  the  habit  of  diplomatic  reserve.) 
The  conversation  turned  on  horse  racing.  Sen- 
ator Wolcott  was  feeling  rather  impoverished 
in  consequence  of  his  experience  at  the  last  race 
meeting.  Choate  remarked,  "I  never  drink  to 
excess,  gamble,  or  bet  on  horses."  Wolcott 
responded  with  a  sigh,  "Oh,  I  wish  /  could  say 
that."  Whereupon  Reed,  with  that  nasal  drawl 
of  his,  said,  "Why  don't  you?  Choate  has  said  it." 

Mr.  Choate  while  Ambassador  to  England 
rendered  two  types  of  great  service.  In  the  first 
place  he  was  the  kind  of  Ambassador  who  achieved 
the  good- will  so  strikingly  shown  to-night,  so  strik- 
ingly proved  to-night  by  the  letters  of  Balfour  and 
Bryce.  That  is  no  small  service  in  itself.  It  is  a 
curious  thing  that  the  ninety  years'  period  during 
which — well,  I  don't  know  that  it  is  so  curious  a 
thing;  it  is  a  lamentable  thing;  I  will  put  it  that 
way — that  the  ninety  years'  period  during  which 
Great  Britain  ingeniously  showed  toward  America 
a  hostility  which  usually  irritated  without  cowing, 
has  been  succeeded  by  a  fifty  years'  period  dur- 
ing which  the  average  American  demagogue  has 
sought  publicity  by  being  ill-mannered  toward 
England;  and  under  such  conditions  the  service 
rendered  by  the  men  of  the  calibre  of  Choate  as 


Hbeofcore  TRoosevelt  31 

Ambassador  are  in  themselves  of  great  conse- 
quence to  this  country;  of  such  consequence  that 
we  cannot  afford  to  ignore  them  in  our  estimate 
of  the  worth  of  any  Ambassador. 

In  addition  to  this,  however,  Mr.  Choate  played 
a  great  and  distinguished  part  in  connection  with 
three  international  matters  of  the  highest  conse- 
quence: the  Alaska  Boundary,  the  open  door  in 
China,  and  the  Panarna  Canal.  The  open  door 
in  China  was  one  of  those  diplomatic  triumphs 
necessarily  ephemeral,  because  it  could  only  be 
permanent  if  backed  by  force;  and  we  chose  to 
delude  ourselves  into  the  belief  that  a  "scrap  of 
paper"  was  of  more  permanent  consequence  than 
events  proved.  Nevertheless,  it  represented  a 
real — a  temporary,  but  a  real — diplomatic  gain 
of  great  consequence,  and  Choate  and  Hay  share 
the  honor,  not  unequally,  of  that  achievement. 

Ambassador  Choate  also  played  a  distinguished 
part  in  what  was  the  opening  stage  of  the  securing 
and  digging  of  the  Panama  Canal;  that  is,  in  the 
abrogation  of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty;  unless 
that  treaty  had  been  abrogated  the  Canal  must 
either  have  remained  unbuilt  or  have  been  built 
at  the  cost  of  a  substantial  measure  of  estrange- 
ment between  Great  Britain  and  ourselves.  It 
was  a  real  triumph  to  have  secured  the  abrogation 
of  the  treaty — accomplished  partly  through  Mr. 
Hay,  partly  through  Ambassador  Choate,  partly 
through  Lord  Pauncefote,  and  partly  through 
Mr.  Balfour  himself.  In  its  first  draft  I  do  not 
think  that  the  treaty  was  satisfactory.  It  was 
rejected  by  the  Senate,  as  I  think  quite  properly 
because — and  it  shows  the  curious,  and;  I  am 


32  Hfct>res0  of 

tempted  to  say,  early  Victorian  innocence  of  both 
nations — we  tried  to  secure  an  international 
guarantee  for  the  neutrality  of  the  Canal  by  asking 
Germany  and  France  to  help  us  guarantee  it! 
Think  of  the  complications  that  such  a  joint 
guarantee  would  have  led  up  to  during  the  last 
three  and  one-half  years,  during  the  two  and  one- 
half  years  before  we  found  out  that  Germany  was 
our  foe — a  discovery  which  we  made  in  leisurely 
fashion.  Following,  of  course,  upon  the  abro- 
gation of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty  was  the 
attempted  treaty  with  Colombia  which  Colombia 
asked  us  to  enter  into ;  her  then  effort  to  blackmail 
the  French  Panama  Canal  Company  out  of  an 
additional  $10,000,000;  the  refusal  of  the  French 
Panama  Canal  Company  to  submit  to  the  black- 
mail, relying  on  our  promise  to  protect  her;  the 
secession  of  Panama,  and  the  building  of  the 
Panama  Canal, — in  all  of  which  Mr.  Choate  was 
only  indirectly  concerned.  My  own  part  in  it 
may  perhaps  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  I 
deemed  it  better  not  to  have  half  a  century  of 
debate  prior  to  starting  in  on  the  Canal ;  I  thought 
that  instead  of  debating  for  half  a  century  before 
building  the  Canal  it  would  be  better  to  build 
the  Canal  first  and  debate  me  for  a  half  century 
afterwards. 

The  Alaska  Boundary  dispute  was  one  of  those 
disputes  which  contain  within  themselves  the  very 
ugliest  possibilities.  Its  settlement  was  of  prime 
consequence ;  and  with  its  settlement  disappeared 
the  last  question  which  could  not  be  arbitrated 
between  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  great  services  that  Choate 


Gbeofcore  "Roosevelt  33 

and  Hay  together  rendered.  On  the  occasion  of 
the  Alaska  Boundary  dispute  the  great  services 
were  rendered  by  Choate  and  Root  together. 
And  I  think  that  their  attitude  in  the  closing 
phases  of  that  transaction  furnished  the  exact 
model  by  which  all  American  diplomats  should 
guide  themselves  in  any  similar  matter  where  it  is 
necessary  to  insist  unflinchingly  on  the  rights  of 
our  country,  and  equally  necessary  to  do  it  with 
the  utmost  courtesy,  forbearance,  and  generosity 
toward  the  friendly  country  with  which  we  are 
dealing. 

So,  Gentlemen,  it  was  the  great  good  fortune  of 
Mr.  Choate,  in  the  closing  period  of  his  active 
career,  to  render  distinguished  service  to  American 
diplomacy,  and  therefore  to  the  American  nation. 
This  was  the  closing  service  of  his  active  career. 
Yet,  even  when  he  had  retired,  he  continued  to 
render  very,  very  real  service.  From  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Great  War  he  declined  to  hold  his 
judgment  in  abeyance  as  between  the  conflicting 
powers.  I  remember  some  time  in  the  fall  or 
early  winter  of  1914,  when  he  presided  at  a 
meeting  on  behalf  of  the  Belgians,  when  he  recited 
the  atrocities  that  had  been  committed  by  Ger- 
many on  Belgium,  and  said:  "Germany  has  as- 
sured us  that  in  the  end  she  will  pay  Belgium. 
If  Heaven  is  willing,  she  shall  pay  in  full!"  To- 
ward the  end  of  our  period  of  neutrality,  in  com- 
mon with  the  major  portion  of  our  people,  Mr. 
Choate  grew  restlessly  unwilling  longer  to  submit 
to  the  treating  of  right  and  wrong  with  the  same 
cool  and  indifferent  friendliness.  I  never  shall 
forget  the  expression  of  which  he  made  use  when 


34    Hbfcress  of  Gbeofcore  IRoosevelt 

finally  we  went  to  war,  or,  to  speak  more  accurately, 
acknowledged  that  we  were  at  war, — we  had  been 
at  war  for  some  time, — acknowledged  that  we  were 
at  war;  whereupon  Choate  said,  "At  last  I  can 
go  about  with  my  head  erect,  unafraid  to  look 
strangers  in  the  face. " 

Mr.  Choate  was  one  of  the  great  assets  of  our 
national  life,  a  great  citizen,  a  great  lawyer,  a  great 
diplomat,  and,  as  Elihu  Root  has  said,  he  himself 
in  his  person  was  greater  than  anything  that  he 
did. 


ADDRESS  BY     .„ 
FRANCIS    LYNDE    STETSON 

Invited  by  your  Committee  to  read  a  paper  this 
evening  upon  Mr.  Choate  as  a  lawyer,  I  hesitated 
to  consent,  saying  that  superior  fitness  for  this 
important  duty  had  been  shown  already  by  three 
Centurians,  Mr.  Strong,  Mr.  Rowe,  and  Mr. 
Guthrie.  But  I  was  met  with  the  reply  that 
excepting  one  other  I  was  the  oldest  living  lawyer 
member  of  The  Century  and  that  I  could  not  shift 
the  obligation  attaching  to  seniority.  The  argu- 
ment though  far  from  convincing  was  conscriptive, 
and  obediently  I  am  here.  Since  then  our  Presi- 
dent Mr.  Root  has  delivered  before  the  City  Bar 
Association  a  masterly  memorial  address,  so  com- 
prehensive as  to  leave  unconsidered  no  feature  in 
the  many-sided  life  of  our  departed  friend.  So  I 
shall  undertake  to  comply  with  your  invitation 
not  by  traversing  again  the  field  so  fully  and  so 
finely  occupied  by  these  superior  husbandmen,  but 
merely  by  presenting  briefly  my  personal  appreci- 
ation of  the  remarkable  professional  qualities  of 
Mr.  Choate. 

His  qualities  were  so  manifold  that  to  speak  of 
him  as  a  lawyer  only  seems  to  lose  sight  of  most 

35 


36 

that  endeared  him  to  our  public,  and  to  follow  him 
into  the  workshop,  instead  of  through  the  great 
world  where  for  more  than  fifty  years,  day  in  and 
day  out,  he  devoted  himself  to  the  instruction  and 
the  entertainment  of  his  fellow-men,  to  the  very 
limit  of  his  great  abilities. 

But  considered  even  within  the  lines  of  his  chosen 
profession,  he  is  to  be  described  as  the  advocate 
more  than  as  the  lawyer.  There  have  been  pro- 
found lawyers  like  Mr.  Southmayd  who  were  not 
advocates,  and  there  have  been  great  advocates 
like  Wendell  Phillips  who  were  not  lawyers.  And 
again  there  have  been  lawyers  like  Mr.  Webster 
and  Rufus  Choate  whose  power  of  advocacy  was 
so  preponderant  as  to  outweigh  and  in  a  meas- 
ure to  obscure  their  extraordinary  capacity  as 
craftsmen.  But,  like  James  Scarlett  (later  Lord 
Abinger)  at  the  English  Bar,  Mr.  Choate  at  the 
American  Bar  was  par  excellence  the  Advocate  of 
the  Trial  Courts. 

For  his  high  service  as  such,  he  combined  most 
of  the  many  necessary  qualifications  in  such  an 
unusual  degree  as  to  set  him  apart  from  his  fellows, 
and  to  mark  him  for  special  admiration  alike  by 
them  and  by  the  general  public. 

Some,  though  not  all,  of  these  essential  quali- 
fications were  indicated  by  him  in  his  fine  tribute 
to  the  memory  of  James  C.  Carter  in  language 
which  may  well  be  quoted  with  reference  to  himself 
and  as  illustrating  his  own  high  professional  ideals. 
He  there  said : 


"  Let  me  try  very  briefly  to  trace  the  personal 
qualities  which  were  the  weapons  by  which  he 


jfrancte  X$nt>e  Stetson          37 

won  the  victory.  *  *  *  He  had  a  very  sound 
mind  in  a  very  sound  body.  His  conscience  was 
clear  as  crystal  and  never  went  back  on  him  as 
it  sometimes  does  on  men  whose  mental  vision 
is  less  clear  than  his.  Absolute  independence 
was  the  controlling  feature  of  his  life.  He  was 
not  without  a  large  share  of  self-assertion  and 
yet  he  was  one  of  the  most  unselfish  of  men. 
He  was  imbued  with  a  high  sense  of  public  duty 
and  was  ardently  patriotic.  His  power  of  labor 
was  prodigious.  By  nature  he  was  warm- 
hearted and  magnanimous.  He  honored  and 
magnified  his  profession." 

This  enumeration,  however,  would  be  incom- 
plete if  applied  in  respect  of  Mr.  Choate,  who 
possessed  also  most  of  the  many  other  traits  re- 
garded as  necessary  to  the  greatest  success  by  Mr. 
Cox  in  his  instructive  and  analytical  essay  upon 
"The  Advocate."  Some  of  these  characteristics 
of  Mr.  Choate  may  be  mentioned.  He  had  a 
capacity  for  prolonged  labors  continued  without 
sleep.  He  once  cited  the  instance  of  Sir  Roundell 
Palmer  (Lord  Selborne)  still  at  work  on  Wednes- 
day morning  though  having  had  no  sleep  since 
the  preceding  Sunday.  Such  cases  are  not  without 
parallel  at  our  own  Bar.  He  had  also  honesty  of 
purpose,  truthfulness  of  nature,  benevolence  of 
aim,  love  of  justice,  and  detestation  of  wrong.  In  a 
remarkable  degree  he  was  quick  to  feel  the  moral 
atmosphere  of  his  tribunal.  None  was  more  alert 
than  he  in  close  and  concentrated  observation  of 
judge,  jury,  witnesses,  and  opposing  counsel,  nor 
could  any  more  quickly  conform  to  any  change, 
however  sudden  or  unexpected.  He  seldom  had 
occasion  for  vain  regrets  over  a  failure  to  say  at 


3$  Hfcfcress  bp 

the  proper  moment  the  proper  thing.  His  intended 
speech  was  completed  in  the  court-room  and  not 
in  his  homeward  bound  cab.  His  swift  and  sure 
perception,  and  his  vivid  and  sensitive  imagi- 
nation were  supported  and  directed  by  a  prompt 
and  sound  judgment.  For  the  exercise  of  all  these 
great  native  powers  he  was  fully  fitted  tempera- 
mentally, for  he  was  courageous,  strong-willed, 
self-confident,  cautious,  and  firm.  Beyond  all 
others  he  maintained  habitually  complete  com- 
mand of  temper  and  self-control. 

This  specification  of  his  qualifications  may  seem 
unduly  extended,  but  in  my  opinion,  and  I  believe 
in  the  opinion  of  lawyers  who  have  had  oppor- 
tunity of  observing  his  conduct  in  the  court-room, 
they  are  not  all  that  might  justly  be  attributed  to 
him. 

No  classification  general  in  terms  could  embrace 
this  Darling  of  the  Gods  and  of  Men,  unique  in  a 
charm  which  was  all  his  own.  He  had  a  beautiful 
person  and  a  winning  address  and  a  strong  voice 
with  smoothness  and  fluency  of  speech.  In  his 
shining  grace  and  sure  swiftness  of  movement  he 
excited  and  captivated  the  admiration  of  those 
whose  favorable  regard  it  was  his  bounden  duty  to 
win.  Not  the  thunderbolt  of  Jove,  but  a  shaft 
of  Apollo,  luminous  and  gleaming  with  fun,  and 
drawn  from  a  full  quiver,  was  his  preferred  weapon, 
which  he  aimed  to  lodge  in  the  consciousness  of  his 
willing  hearers,  and  generally  with  such  sure  effect 
that  it  might  be  said  of  him  as  of  Scarlett,  that 
when  he  spoke  there  were  thirteen  men  in  the 
jury  box.  As  occasion  seemed  to  require,  but 
without  loss  of  dignity  or  of  his  native  refinement, 


jfrancte  Xpnfce  Stetson          39 

at  times  he  would  assume  the  part  of  the  laughing 
cavalier.  Indeed,  his  contagious  humor  might 
be  taken  as  his  distinguishing  feature.  During 
the  last  fifty  years  at  the  New  York  Bar  hardly 
more  than  four  of  its  leaders  have  been  notable 
for  their  wit — Mr.  Evarts,  whose  lambent  humor 
tickled  and  illuminated,  but  never  scorched; 
Francis  N.  Bangs,  whose  brilliant  thrusts  flashed 
like  a  meteor  with  ,a  train  of  burning  sparks; 
Frederic  R.  Coudert,  of  Gallic  vivacity;  and  Mr. 
Choate,  the  fun-maker.  His  fun  was  a  veritable 
bonfire  around  which  his  hearers  gathered  and 
warmed  themselves,  and  in  the  fire  was  his  point, 
which  later  they  felt,  whether  or  not  at  first 
they  saw  it.  He  was  the  most  dangerous  adver- 
sary at  the  American  Bar  of  later  days,  although 
the  late  John  G.  Johnson  was  the  most  formidable. 
By  this  I  mean  that  while  from  the  very  outset 
of  a  trial  Mr.  Johnson  inspired  among  his  adver- 
saries anxiety  and  often  terror,  Mr.  Choate  was 
always  suave  but  no  less  effective  in  attack,  and 
he  overcame  his  opponents  without  prior  alarm 
or  shock  and  almost  without  pain.  His  method 
was  all  his  own.  As  observed  by  a  chemical  friend, 
"It  was  Choatide  of  Chodium." 

His  lofty  leadership  was  attained  by  no  easy- 
going gait  or  by  merry  jaunting.  He  climbed  the 
heights  by  virtue  of  determined  will  and  unrelent- 
ing effort.  He  might  again  have  been  speaking 
of  himself  when  in  1907  he  said  to  the  New  York 
State  Bar  Association : 

"  I  have  known  the  leaders  of  the  Bar  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  and  in  this  respect  the  same 


40 

rule  prevails.  There  is  every  variety  among 
them  of  physical,  mental,  and  moral  qualities. 
No  two  are  ever  alike  in  personal  character- 
istics, except  in  one  essential  and  vital  quality 
which  is  common  to  them  all.  I  mean  the  power 
and  will  to  hold  on  and  hold  out  under  all  cir- 
cumstances and  against  all  counter  inducements 
until  the  goal  is  reached.  This  indomitable 
tenacity  of  purpose  with  brains,  health,  and 
character  insures  success  and  leadership." 

He  had  and  he  exercised  habitually  power  of 
concentrated  and  continuous  mental  application 
notwithstanding  his  disclaimer  in  this  same  me- 
morial of  Mr.  Carter,  when  he  said : 

"His  mental  endowments  were  of  a  very  su- 
perior and  splendid  quality  and  he  appreciated 
his  own  intellectual  powers  and  reveled  in  the 
exercise  of  them.  Thinking,  which  to  most  of 
us  is  a  painful  and  tiresome  process,  he  de- 
lighted in,  and  pursued  it  as  a  most  fascinating 
game.  His  mind  was  of  a  decidedly  philo- 
sophical turn,  fond  of  considering  and  solving 
all  the  problems  of  human  society  and  progress 
—and  the  reasoning  powers  which  in  most  of 
us  are  dwarfed  and  twisted,  in  him  were  natur- 
ally and  fully  developed.  Logic  as  a  pastime 
was  as  acceptable  to  him  as  golf  or  bridge  is 
to  the  average  man  to-day." 

Indeed  it  was  quite  usual  for  Mr.  Choate  to 
speak  lightly  of  the  thinkers.  When  I  told  him 
that  Mr.  Carter  had  referred  to  a  lawyer  friend 
as  "  a  man  whom  an  idea  intoxicates, "  he  replied, 
suggestively,  "There  are  others." 

It  is  true  that  the  philosophy  of  the  law  engaged 
his  attention  less  than  it  did  that  of  Mr.  Carter, 


frauds  X^nfce  Stetson          41 

but,  nevertheless,  underlying  all  of  his  apparently 
casual  discussion  was  a  solid  and  substantial  basis 
of  learning  and  reflection. 

The  path  by  which  Mr.  Choate  attained  the 
pinnacle  of  success  was  that  pursued  by  eminent 
predecessors  from  time  immemorial  and  that  which 
still  must  be  pursued  by  those  who  would  follow 
him.  He  himself  described  it  in  his  1905  address 
before  the  New  England  Society.  The  youth  of 
limited  means  but  of  clear  and  sturdy  integrity, 
diligent  in  his  studies  and  courteous  in  demeanor, 
attracts  the  regard  of  some  lawyer  of  eminence  and 
liberal  disposition — in  this  case,  a  remote  kins- 
man Rufus  Choate — and  bears  a  letter  from  him 
to  another  great  lawyer,  William  M.  Evarts.  As 
generally  in  the  experience  of  the  bearers  of  such 
letters  there  is  no  immediate  result.  He  turns 
to  a  college  friend  and  finds  modest  opportunity 
for  service.  Then  he  endeavors  to  conduct  an 
office  of  his  own  in  association  with  a  youth  remark- 
able for  his  gift  of  eloquence,  William  H.  L.  Barnes, 
later  of  San  Francisco.  After  the  lapse  of  four 
years  the  Rufus  Choate  letter  bears  fruit,  and  an 
invitation  comes  from  Mr.  Evarts  to  join  his 
firm,  then  receiving  an  annual  income  of  $20,000, 
moderate  enough  according  to  present  standards 
for  a  law  firm  of  commanding  importance  in  New 
York  and  throughout  the  country.  There  he 
finds  congenial  and  stimulating  companionship 
with  the  versatile  Evarts,  of  whom,  he  said,  "I 
owe  him  more  than  words  can  tell,"  the  erudite 
and  caustic  Southmayd,  his  constant  and  never- 
failing  fount  of  legal  learning,  and  the  polished 
and  impressive  Charles  E.  Butler.  Thus  at  once 


42  Sfcbrees  bp 

he  was  plunged  into  a  great  volume  of  business  in 
an  old  and  established  firm  of  which  the  elder 
members  were  already  overworked.  From  that 
fortunate  moment  he  had  never  need  to  seek 
a  retainer  or  to  worry  about  income.  Of  course 
such  favoring  conditions  tended  to  induce  the 
genial  serenity  which  enhanced  the  attractiveness 
of  his  handsome  face  and  person,  and  to  develop 
the  naturally  buoyant  waggishness  that  even  then 
led  Professor  Dwight  in  the  familiarity  of  close 
personal  intimacy  to  dub  him  "Jocose."  By  his 
brethren  generally,  he  was  referred  to  affection- 
ately, but  never  with  disrespect,  as  "Joe  Choate, " 
reminding  us  of  the  familiar  appellation  of  a 
much  loved  Englishman  of  Letters  "whom  men 
know  as  Lord  Houghton,  but  whom  the  gods  call 
Dicky  Milnes. "  With  each  of  these  great  men, 
loving  friendship  was  the  dearest  of  possessions. 
His  great  powers  were  employed  always  under  a 
clear  and  abiding  sense  of  the  profound  obligations 
of  the  advocate  as  declared  by  him  in  many  public 
utterances  wholly  consistent  with  his  own  pro- 
fessional conduct.  He  regarded  it  as  a  duty  to 
hold  himself  ready  to  respond  to  the  call  of  those 
needing  his  professional  service,  irrespective  of  the 
merit  of  themselves  or  of  their  cause.  This  obli- 
gation was  described  by  him  in  his  memorial 
of  Mr.  Carter  of  whom  he  said : 

"  He  was  very  far  from  restricting  himself  to 
causes  that  he  thought  he  could  win,  or  to  such 
as  were  sound  in  law  or  right  in  fact.  No  genu- 
ine advocate  that  I  know  of  has  ever  done  that. 
He  recognized  and  maintained  the  true  relation 
of  the  advocate  to  the  courts  and  the  commu- 


frauds  Xpnfce  Stetson          43 

nity;  that  it  is  a  strictly  professional  relation 
and  that  either  side  of  any  cause  that  a  court 
may  hear  the  advocate  may  properly  main- 
tain." 

Mr.  Choate  saw  clearly  the  possibilities  of  cruel 
injustice  to  those  who  either  in  appearance  or  in 
fact  had  incurred  the  penalties  of  the  law,  if  at  the 
very  outset  they  were  to  be  denied  all  opportunity 
through  competent  professional  assistance  either 
to  prove  themselves  free  from  legal  fault  or  to 
bring  their  punishment  within  limits  prescribed 
by  law.  So  he  stood  ready  as  an  advocate  in  the 
halls  of  justice  to  present  any  cause  which  it  was 
the  duty  of  the  courts  to  hear. 

For  him  the  highest  duty  of  the  advocate  was  to 
be  loyal  to  the  client  and  to  the  cause  that  he  had 
undertaken  to  maintain  or  to  defend.  "I  have 
made  it  my  rule  never  to  neglect  a  case,  no  mat- 
ter how  unimportant  it  may  seem."  To  win  the 
case  which  he  had  undertaken  to  win  was  his 
obligation,  and  to  this  end  he  spared  no  effort 
and  he  rejected  no  expedient  within  the  bounds 
of  honorable  conduct.  As  Mr.  Strong  has  said, 
"When  hard-pressed  he  took  refuge  in  a  techni- 
cality if  it  happened  in  his  way."  He  did  not 
accept  all  of  Lord  Brougham's  notorious  declara- 
tion as  to  the  exclusive  and  unlimited  obligation 
of  the  advocate  to  his  client,  but  neither  did  he 
reject  all  of  it.  His  own  opinion  was  expressed 
in  this  delineation  of  Rufus  Choate : 

"His  theory  of  advocacy  was  the  only  pos- 
sible theory  consistent  with  the  sound  and 
wholesome  administration  of  justice  —  that 


44 

with  all  loyalty  to  truth  and  honor,  he  must 
devote  his  best  talents  and  attainments,  all 
that  he  was  and  all  that  he  could,  to  the  sup- 
port and  enforcement  of  the  cause  committed 
to  his  trust,"  and  (quoting  Mr.  Justice  Curtis, 
one  of  the  most  high-minded  and  conscientious 
of  lawyers  and  judges)  "in  doing  so  he  did 
but  his  duty.  If  other  people  did  theirs  the 
administration  of  justice  was  secure." 

The  duty  of  the  advocate  to  maintain  the  dignity 
and  the  honor  of  the  courts  of  which  he  is  a  minister 
he  felt  and  fulfilled  in  the  highest  degree.  The 
very  atmosphere  of  the  court-room  was  clarified 
by  his  presence  and  its  conflicts  were  ennobled 
by  his  participation.  This  duty  as  well  as  that 
of  guarding  and  maintaining  a  high  standard  of 
public  morality  were  regarded  by  him  as  in  the 
light  of  a  sacred  service,  as  presently  we  shall  have 
occasion  to  note. 

The  court-room,  especially  the  trial  court,  was 
the  arena  in  which  he  found  daily  delight,  for 
he  felt  to  the  full  the  joy  of  contest — gaudium 
certaminis.  His  appearances  there  were  almost 
continuous  from  October  to  June.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  any  other  member  of  the  New  York  Bar 
appeared  in  so  many  cases  and  so  various,  though 
in  this  particular  as  in  many  others  a  parallel 
may  be  found  in  the  great  career  of  his  junior 
competitor  John  G.  Johnson  of  Philadelphia,  who 
by  only  one  month  preceded  him  into  the  great 
hereafter.  Each  of  these  remarkable  men  es- 
chewed mere  dialectics  and  refined  historical  phras- 
ing, and  each  passed  every  proposition  through  the 
alembic  of  his  common-sense.  To  simplify  abstruse 


jfrancis  Xpnfce  Stetson          45 

problems,  to  clarify  cloudy  or  obscure  cases  was 
with  each  the  fundamental  philosophy.  Neither 
talked  "like  a  book, "  but  like  our  great  master  of 
style,  Abraham  Lincoln,  each  sought  the  simple 
and  often  the  homely  phrase  with  which  to 
win,  not  to  dazzle,  the  mind  of  his  hearer.  For 
Mr.  Choate  the  familiar  narratives  of  the  Bible, 
and  even  of  the  Books  of  Nursery  Tales — Balaam's 
Ass,  the  Cave  of  Adullam,  "The  House  that  Jack 
Built" — became  potent  and  sufficient  illustrations. 
His  eminence  was  based  upon  his  exceptional 
knowledge  of  human  nature  even  more  than  upon 
his  learning  as  a  student  of  the  law,  for  which  con- 
fessedly he  relied  much  upon  Mr.  Southmayd. 
How  clearly  he  comprehended  the  mental  modes  of 
the  average  man,  including  the  judge  on  the  bench, 
is  illustrated  by  the  account  given  by  Mr.  Strong 
of  Mr.  Choate' s  voluntary  and  friendly  appear- 
ance in  behalf  of  Mr.  (now  Judge)  John  W.  Goff 
when  arraigned  for  contempt  before  a  most  upright 
and  resolute  judge,  Recorder  Smyth.  In  present- 
ing the  case  Mr.  Choate  declared  that  the  con- 
tempt charged  had  not  been  committed  because  on 
that  particular  occasion  Mr.  Goffs  conduct  was 
not  what  Recorder  Smyth  declared  it  to  be : 

"But,"  interrupted  the  Recorder  heatedly,"  I 
saw  him  do  it. "  "Then, "  replied  Mr.  Choate 
quite  calmly,  "it  becomes  a  question  of  course 
between  your  Honor's  personal  observation  and 
the  observation  of  a  crowd  of  witnesses  who  tes- 
tified to  the  contrary.  Was  your  Honor  ever 
conscious  of  being  absolutely  convinced  from 
the  very  outset  of  a  trial  that  a  certain  person 
was  guilty?  If  not,  then  you  are  more  than 


46  Bbbress  bp 

human.  Was  your  Honor  ever  conscious  as  the 
trial  proceeded  that  it  was  impossible  to  conceal 
your  opinion?  If  not,  then  you  are  more  than 
human.  Well,  that  has  happened  in  many 
courts  and  time  and  again  when  it  does  happen 
it  arouses  the  aggressive  resistance  of  every  ad- 
vocate who  understands  his  duty ;  and  he  would 
be  false  to  his  trust  if  it  did  not  arouse  him. " 


Before  this  suggestion  of  an  issue  of  fact,  possibly 
of  veracity,  the  excellent  Recorder  receded,  and 
contented  himself  with  a  general  admonition  to 
the  lawyers  present  to  be  good  boys  in  the  court- 
room. 

Brief  reference  may  now  be  made  to  two  or  three 
cases  of  public  interest  in  which  Mr.  Choate 
appeared. 

I  agree  with  his  own  estimate  of  the  high  import- 
ance of  the  case  of  Fitzjohn  Porter,  whose  unjust 
conviction  and  degradation  by  a  court-martial  was 
reversed  and  whose  military  rectitude  was  vindi- 
cated after  a  lapse  of  a  score  of  years  through  the 
mighty  effort  of  Mr.  Choate. 

Next,  I  should  place  his  extraordinary  success, 
despite  the  powerful  reasons  to  the  contrary  (set 
forth  in  the  dissenting  opinion)  in  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court,  in  freeing  from  trial  for 
murder,  U.  S.  Marshal  Neagle,  who,  in  protection 
of  Mr.  Justice  Field,  whom  he  was  attending  in 
Lathrop,  California,  had  there  shot  dead  his  assail- 
ant, David  S.  Terry.  It  was  not  doubted  that  the 
killing  was  justifiable,  but  there  was  presented  for 
affirmance  the  novel  point  that  this  question  of 
fact  could  be  withdrawn  from  a  jury  and  could  be 


jfrancis  X^nfce  Stetson          47 

determined  in  the  affirmative  by  a  judge  upon  a 
writ  of  habeas  corpus.  In  maintaining  this  pro- 
position of  overwhelming  importance  for  the  pro- 
tection of  courts  in  the  discharge  of  their  official 
duty,  Mr.  Choate  demonstrated  his  own  great 
ability  and  public  spirit  and  justified  the  con- 
fidence in  his  professional  capacity  by  Mr.  Justice 
Field,  who  for  the  defense  of  his  protector  chose 
Mr.  Choate  out  of  the  entire  American  Bar.  Could 
there  be  higher  testimony  than  this,  from  a  court 
supreme  in  America  and  without  superior  in  all 
the  world? 

Mr.  Choate's  part  in  the  Income  Tax  cases  of 
course  was  highly  important,  but  for  two  reasons 
I  do  not  rank  it  so  highly  as  do  some  others.  In 
the  first  place  the  credit  as  well  as  the  responsi- 
bility for  the  origination,  the  presentation  and,  in 
large  measure,  the  winning  of  these  cases,  in  my 
personal  observation,  was  due  primarily  to  our 
fellow  member  Mr.  Guthrie.  In  the  second  place 
the  attitude  of  Mr.  Choate  towards  the  Income 
Tax  and  his  argument  in  these  cases  illustrates 
a  characteristic  feature  in  his  mental  make-up. 
Ever  benevolent  in  every  case  of  individual  hard- 
ship, he  had  abiding  doubt  as  to  the  validity  of  the 
claims  of  what  are  called  sociological  reforms.  He 
did  not  fully  appreciate  the  deep,  persistent,  and 
powerful  determination  of  our  people  not  to  submit 
to  what  they  regarded,  and  what  in  this  particular 
the  courts  previously  had  decided  to  be,  an  attempt 
unduly  to  limit  the  powers  of  their  representatives 
in  Congress.  The  adequacy  of  that  power  and  the 
propriety  of  the  exercise  of  that  power  in  the  In- 
come Tax  Law  were  asserted  in  masterful  argu- 


48 

ments  then  presented  by  Attorney-General  Olney 
and  Mr.  Carter  and  adopted  in  the  dissenting 
opinion  of  Mr.  Justice  White.  Since  then  those 
arguments  have  found  practical  and  compelling 
expression  through  the  adoption  of  an  amend- 
ment to  the  Federal  Constitution,  through  what 
may  be  recognized  as  little  less  than  a  social 
revolution. 

This  ultimate  result  had  been  forecast  in  the 
arguments  of  Mr.  Olney  and  Mr.  Carter,  who  in- 
timated that  among  the  possibilities  of  departing 
from  the  former  decision  and  of  overthrowing  a 
law  looking  to  a  distribution  of  the  burdens  of 
taxation  according  to  ability  to  bear  the  burden, 
was  the  stirring  up  of  a  "popular  wrath  that  might 
sweep  the  court  away."  The  warning  seems  to 
have  been  justified  by  the  event,  for  when  after 
re-argument  the  divided  court  rendered  decision 
overruling  the  act  of  Congress  with  the  concurrence 
of  one  Justice  who  on  the  first  argument  had  voted 
otherwise,  Mr.  Bryan  found  ample  opportunity 
for  his  terrifying  campaign  of  1896,  and  his  taunt: 

"They  say  that  we  passed  an  unconstitu- 
tional Income  Tax  Law:  well,  it  wasn't  un- 
constitutional until  a  judge  changed  his  mind, 
and  we  couldn't  know  that  a  judge  was  going 
to  change  his  mind. " 

The  thrust  was  so  keen  that  in  conversation 
with  me  Mr.  Choate  said,  "That  was  very  sharp; 
it  was  the  best  part  of  his  speech. " 

The  argument  of  Mr.  Choate  was  based  upon 
this  proposition : 


jfrancis  X^nfce  Steteon          49 

"  I  thought  that  the  fundamental  object  of  all 
civilized  government  was  the  preservation  of 
the  right  of  private  property.  That  is  what  Mr. 
Webster  said  at  Plymouth  Rock  in  1820,  and  I 
supposed  that  all  educated  men  believed  it." 

This  declaration,  of  course,  contains  an  import- 
ant truth,  but  is  it  now  as  certain  as  in  1820  it 
might  have  seemed  to  be,  that  the  essential  truth 
of  the  declaration  is  challenged  by  a  proposition 
to  appropriate  property's  surplus  income  for  the 
support  of  government,  even  a  government  with 
greatly  widened  activities?  Is  it  unfair  to  let  the 
burden  of  taxes  for  national  purposes  follow  the 
accumulations  of  wealth,  regardless  of  sectional 
distribution,  into  every  part  of  the  country 
under  national  protection?  Would  Mr.  Choate  to- 
day lay  the  emphasis  just  where  he  did?  Could 
he  or  could  any  one  else  in  the  light  of  present 
conditions  assert  unqualifiedly  that  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  right  of  private  property  "is  the  fun- 
damental object  of  all  civilized  government?" 
But,  it  should  be  repeated,  his  position  then 
taken  professionally  and  from  a  sympathetic 
and  anxious  desire  to  maintain  the  provisions 
and  the  limitations  of  the  Federal  Constitution 
in  their  strictest  sense  implied  no  disregard  for 
the  sufferings  and  burdens  of  his  fellow-man  to 
which  he  was  as  keenly  sensitive  as  was  any  sup- 
porter of  the  legislation  there  denounced  by  him. 

In  the  case  of  Laidlaw  against  Russell  Sage,  won 
by  him  before  every  jury  and  lost  by  him  in  each 
Appellate  Court,  there  was  no  limit  to  his  sallies 
upon  the  defendant  or  upon  the  defendant's  coun- 
sel, for  here  as  always  he  was  audaciously  personal, 


50  Hfcfcrees  b\> 

frequently  and  intentionally  pushing  his  opponents 
beyond  the  bounds  of  self-control,  though  seldom 
to  the  rupture  of  personal  relations. 

In  the  Sage  case  he  deemed  it  necessary  and  he 
found  it  sufficient  to  destroy  the  prestige  of  the 
defendant  before  the  jury  by  the  most  minute  and 
pin-pricking  cross-examination.  When  a  lady's  re- 
monstrance that  "Mr.  Choate  is  not  respectful  to 
Mr.  Sage"  was  repeated  to  him,  he  answered, 
"Oh,  some  of  my  lady  friends  tell  me  that  I  am 
positively  indecent." 

Referring  to  Mr.  Sage's  statement  that  some- 
thing had  been  done  not  by  him  but  by  his  counsel, 
Mr.  Choate  said,  "  I  see;  you  don't  do  any  barking 
when  you  have  a  dog  to  do  it  for  you."  One 
of  the  defendant's  counsel  then  asked  "Which  of 
us  is  referred  to  as  the  dog?"  To  which,  with  his 
accustomed  good  nature,  Mr.  Choate  replied,  "Oh, 
all  of  us."  If  so,  then,  at  that,  they  must  have 
been  a  group  of  great  St.  Bernards,  no  less  helpful 
and  kindly  than  they  were  sagacious  and  powerful. 

In  the  Central  Pacific  Railroad  litigations  where 
Collis  P.  Huntington  was  defendant,  Mr.  Choate 
was  opposed  by  two  eminent  counsel,  Roscoe 
Conkling  and  the  acute  Francis  N.  Bangs,  father  of 
two  of  our  fellow  members.  Mr.  Choate  won  be- 
fore the  jury  but  lost  finally  before  the  Appellate 
Court.  His  powers  of  audacity  and  badinage 
found  opportunity  for  brilliant  display  at  the  trial, 
but  the  keenest  and  quickest  reply  was  that  made 
by  Mr.  Bangs  when  about  to  begin  his  argument 
to  the  question  of  Judge  Van  Vorst,  "How  long 
will  your  peroration  take,  Mr.  Bangs?"  "Your 
Honor  means  my  pre  oration,  do  you  not?" 


If  rands  Hpnfce  Stetson          51 

Mr.  Choate's  often  quoted  application  to  Mr. 
Conkling  of  Hamlet's  apostrophic  rhapsody  over 
his  father's  portrait  may  have  been  intended  in 
some  measure  to  appease  his  late  coming  opponent, 
to  whom  he  had  turned  from  his  opening  address 
before  the  jury  with  the  jaunty  salutation,  "Oh, 
Senator,  are  you  here — when  did  you  blow  in?" 

Mr.  Choate  and  Mr.  Bangs  faced  each  other 
finally  in  the  noted  trial  of  Feuerdant  v.  Cesnola, 
in  which  Mr.  Choate  greatly  exasperated  Mr. 
Bangs,  and  finally  defeated  him.  The  trial 
lasted  for  weeks  and  was  without  pecuniary 
benefit  to  either  counsel,  each  giving  his  time,  his 
labors,  and,  in  the  case  of  one,  his  life,  for  the 
discharge  of  what  he  deemed  a  public  duty.  Mr. 
Bangs  was  a  sick  man  during  the  trial  and  its  inci- 
dents and  exactions  hastened  his  end.  He  died  a 
few  months  later. 

The  list  of  cases  of  first  importance  conducted 
to  successful  issue  by  Mr.  Choate,  occupies  nearly 
ten  columns  of  Mr.  Rowe's  admirable  and  sym- 
pathetic sketch  in  Case  and  Comment  for  Sep- 
tember, 1917,  which  may  well  be  consulted  by 
any  who  desire  a  fuller  account  of  his  court  activi- 
ties than  can  be  given  within  the  limits  of  the  time 
assigned  to  me  by  your  committee  or  permitted 
by  your  patience. 

The  court-room,  however,  did  not  absorb  all  the 
energies  or  witness  all  of  the  achievements  of 
Mr.  Choate  as  a  lawyer.  He  was  a  wise  and  as- 
tute counsellor,  and  his  sympathies  were  readily 
aroused  and  earnestly  exerted  in  behalf  of  those 
seeking  him  in  trouble  or  perplexity.  His  comfort- 
ing and  illuminating  advice  soothed  many  pangs 


52 

and  saved  many  hearts  and  homes  and  fortunes. 
He  affected  and  perhaps  sometimes  he  felt  a  cynical 
indifference  to  the  concoction  or  to  the  consum- 
mation in  legal  form  of  plans  for  business  enter- 
prises, once  asking  a  friend  so  engaged,  "How 
are  you  getting  on  with  your  clients  and  damned 
schemes?"  He  may  have  felt  as  did  the  lamen- 
ted Hornblower  that  he  "would  rather  reap  the 
fruits  of  litigation  than  sow  its  seeds, "  and  yet  in 
this  very  field  when  he  chose,  he  was  a  master 
of  design.  He  could  visualize  as  well  as  any  a 
venture  into  an  untried  and  obscure  region  of  com- 
mercial experiment,  and  few  of  his  clients  demon- 
strated a  sounder  business  judgment  than  did  he 
in  the  management  of  his  own  affairs.  Indeed, 
his  scope  was  so  wide  and  his  success  so  constant 
that  the  general  view  of  him  must  be  of  a  great 
man,  not  merely  even  of  a  great  advocate.  As 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  was  described  by  Matthew 
Arnold  as  being  not  a  great  poet,  but  a  great  man 
who  wrote  poetry,  so  it  may  be  said  of  Mr.  Choate 
that  whether  or  not  the  most  learned  in  the  law 
certainly  he  was  a  great  man  who  practiced  law. 

But  his  greatness  burst  the  bounds  of  pro- 
fessional vocation  and  enlarged  the  sphere  of 
American  influence  as  you  have  been  told  to-night 
by  our  eminent  and  powerful  leader  Colonel 
Roosevelt,  whose  presence  and  address  we  sincerely 
appreciate  and  for  which  we  thank  him. 

During  the  notable  seventeen  years  after  1899 
Mr.  Choate  gave  to  his  country  and  to  mankind  a 
service  as  glorious  as  any  rendered  by  almost  any 
member  of  our  profession  or  by  any  on  the  field  of 
battle. 


jfrancis  Hsnfce  stetson          53 

In  1898  he  received  and  accepted  the  call  of  Presi- 
dent McKinley  to  go  as  Ambassador  of  the  United 
States  to  Great  Britain,  and  there  "to  promote  the 
welfare  of  both  countries  by  cultivating  the  most 
friendly  relations  between  them."  How  wonder- 
fully he  accomplished  this  mission  is  indicated  in 
the  volume  of  addresses  in  England  published  under 
the  title  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Other  Addresess.  In 
the  scope  and  death,  of  these  eleven  addresses  of 
which  seven  concerned  exclusively  Americans  or 
America,  every  true  American  will  find  fresh  cause 
for  admiration  of  the  delightful  speaker.  I  can 
quote  now  from  only  one  of  them,  noteworthy  for 
its  range  and  raciness,  that  delivered  at  the  dinner 
given  to  Mr.  Choate  by  the  Bench  and  Bar  of  Eng- 
land at  Lincoln's  Inn,  April  I4th,  1905.  Rollicking 
fun  and  tender  pathos  alike  lighted  the  avenue  to 
his  hearers'  hearts.  For  example  of  fine  foolery 
take  this : 


"Our  barristers  appear  in  plain  clothes  in 
court.  The  Judges — some  of  them — wear 
gowns,  but  never  a  wig.  I  think  it  would  be  a 
very  rash  man  that  would  propose  that  bold 
experiment  to  the  democracy.  If  the  Lord 
Chancellor  had  wished  that  our  primitive  and 
unsophisticated  people  should  adopt  that  relic 
of  antiquity  and  grandeur  he  should  not  have 
allowed  his  predecessors  in  his  great  office  to 
tell  such  fearful  stories  about  each  other  in 
respect  to  that  article  of  apparel.  We  have 
read  the  story  of  Lord  Campbell  as  given  in  his 
diary  annotated  by  his  daughter,  as  to  what  be- 
came of  Lord  Erskine's  full-bottomed  wig  when 
he  ceased  to  be  Lord  Chancellor.  That  it  was 
purchased  and  exported  to  the  coast  of  Guinea 


54 

in  order  that  it  might  make  an  African  warrior 
more  formidable  to  his  enemies  on  the  field  of 
battle.  We  have  a  great  prejudice  to  anything 
that  savors  of  overawing  the  Court,  overawing 
the  jury,  and  if  any  such  terrors  are  to  be 
connected  with  that  instrument,  our  pure  de- 
mocracy will  never  adopt  it. " 

And  then  listen  to  this  fascinating  tribute  to  the 
Chairman,  Lord  Chancellor  Halsbury : 

"I  am  especially  proud  that  the  chair  is  oc- 
cupied by  the  Lord  Chancellor  whose  name  in 
both  countries  is  a  synonym  for  equity  and  jus- 
tice. In  spite  of  his  thirty-five  years  at  the  Bar 
and  his  eighteen  years  upon  the  woolsack,  he  is 
the  very  incarnation  of  perennial  youth.  Time 
like  an  ever-rolling  stream  bears  all  its  sons 
away,  but  the  Lord  Chancellor  seems  to  stem  the 
tide  of  time.  Instead  of  retreating  like  the  rest 
of  us  before  its  advancing  waves  he  is  actually 
working  his  way  up  stream.  He  demonstrates 
what  I  have  been  trying  to  prove  for  the  last 
three  years  that  the  eighth  decade  of  life  is  far 
the  best,  and  I  am  sure  he  will  join  with  me  in 
advising  you  all  to  hurry  up  and  get  into  it  as 
soon  as  you  can." 

But  the  address  not  merely  entertaining  and 
tactful  reached  a  lofty  height  in  this  unsurpassed 
tribute  to  his  profession : 

The  world  struggle  dominated  him  as  power- 
fully as  the  passion  of  his  early  youth  for  freedom. 

"I  started  in  life  with  a  belief  that  our  pro- 
fession in  its  highest  walks  afforded  the  most 
noble  employment  in  which  any  man  could 
engage,  and  I  am  of  the  same  opinion  still. 
Until  I  became  Ambassador  and  entered  the 


franc!*  Ipnfce  Stetson          55 

terra  incognita  of  diplomacy  I  believed  a  man 
could  be  of  greater  service  to  his  country  and 
his  race  in  the  foremost  ranks  of  the  Bar  than 
anywhere  else  and  I  think  so  still.  To  be  a 
priest  and  possibly  a  high  priest  in  the  temple 
of  justice,  to  serve  at  her  altar  and  aid  in  her 
administration,  to  maintain  and  defend  those 
inalienable  rights  of  life,  liberty,  and  property 
upon  which  the  safety  of  society  depends,  to 
succor  the  oppressed  and  to  defend  the  inno- 
cent, to  maintain  constitutional  rights  against 
all  violations  whether  by  the  Executives,  by 
the  Legislature,  by  the  resistless  power  of  the 
Press,  or  worst  of  all  by  the  ruthless  rapacity 
of  an  unbridled  majority,  to  rescue  the  scapegoat 
and  restore  him  to  his  proper  place  in  the  world 
— all  this  seemed  to  me  to  furnish  a  field  worthy 
of  any  man's  ambition. " 

He  was  zealous  for  justice  and  for  the  good  of  his 
country  and  of  the  world.  He  was  the  head  and 
heart  of  much  more  than  our  Bar. 

As  a  writer  and  speaker  his  fame  would  be  secure 
had  he  delivered  only  his  addresses  on  Abraham 
Lincoln  and  on  Rufus  Choate.  This  last  was  con- 
sidered his  masterpiece,  and  when  this  was  said  to 
him,  he  answered:  "Yes,  that  is  the  best.  I  never 
worked  so  hard  on  a  speech  as  on  that  one. "  And 
herein  lay  an  explanation.  The  finished,  flowing, 
easy,  self-speaking  address  in  this  case,  as  in  the 
others,  was  something  that  had  not  merely  hap- 
pened. It  was,  and  most  of  the  others  were,  the 
sum  of  painstaking  labor  and  of  earnest  reflection. 

His  ending  was  almost  an  apotheosis.  At  the 
reception  of  the  British  Commission  in  the  City 
Hall  the  Mayor  of  New  York  hailed  him  as 
our  first  citizen.  At  that  glorious  service  at  the 


56  Hfcfcress  b£  Jfrancte  X^nfce  Stetson 

Cathedral  on  the  morning  of  Sunday,  May  I3th, 
full  of  honors,  crowned  with  love,  carrying  dignity 
and  reverence  in  his  presence,  he  was  in  his  beau- 
tiful old  age,  uttering  a  nunc  dimittis,  without 
precedent  since  the  days  of  the  ancient  Simeon. 

All  honored  him  and  those  admitted  to  his  inti- 
macy loved  him.  In  sincerity  and  love,  his  own 
tribute  to  Rufus  Choate  may  be  repeated  of  him : 

EMERSON  MOST  TRULY  SAYS  THAT  "CHARACTER 
IS  ABOVE  INTELLECT  AND  THIS  MAN'S  CHARACTER 
SURPASSED  EVEN  HIS  EXALTED  INTELLECT  AND 
CONTROLLING  ALL  HIS  GREAT  ENDOWMENTS 
MADE  THE  CONSUMMATE  BEAUTY  OF  HIS  LIFE." 


A     000  105  781     9 


